The other day I came across an excerpt of a study on Digital Media Production Trends that was published by SCRI International.
The study ranked corporate video production at the top of a list of "professional media and entertainment content types" people work with. At first, I was surprised at the ranking, but when I looked a little more closely and realized that it wasn't based on revenue or spending, things made a lot more sense.
First, a couple details on the study. The survey was administered to broadcast and pro video facilities of all sizes worldwide and was undertaken with the help of ProAV Buyers Guide, Post Production Buyers Guide and Broadcast Equipment Buyers Guide, as well as SCRI proprietary lists. SCRI has more details on the industry types surveyed.
According to the study the most common "professional media and entertainment content types" people work with are:
- Corporate Video related production (48.6%)
- Commercials (TV & online – 43.8%)
- Documentaries (42.7%)
- Special Events (38.5%)
- Training Videos (38.4%)
- TV Episodics (35.7%)
- Feature Films (32.4%)
- TV Other (28.7%)
- Short Form Online Content (25.9%)
- Music Videos (24.9%)
- News Reports (23.2%)
- Sports Video (21.6%)
- Music/Audio for Video (18.9%)
- Onlne Webisodics (17.3%)
- Infomercials (14.6%)
- Syndicated TV (12.4%)
- Gaming (2.4%)
Yes, the numbers add up to more than 100%. That's because people could select all of the media and content types they worked with.
Given that facilities of all sizes do some work on corporate video related projects, even if this isn't their primary business, it makes sense that Corporate Video ranks so highly. In fact, you could argue that anyone doing commercials, training videos, viral videos, is doing an activity that would roll up into the broader category of Corporate Video.
While there isn't much you can act on based on this excerpt, this study provides an interesting snapshot of what people in the industry are doing, and how important the corporate market is. It keeps a lot of people employed in spite of the limited attention it gets compared to Feature Films, Episodics, and other Broadcast work.
It would be interesting to see a time series of this data, so we could see which areas are becoming more important. DoddleMe's thesis that money is shifting to "nuts and bolts" corporate video production in lean economic times is an interesting one, and quite plausible (especially if you consider that much of the original web video that is produced could be considered "corporate"), but it would be nice to see it backed up with hard numbers.
It would also be interesting to see some data on revenue in this area and the average amount that is spent per production. I would guess that even though a growing amount of activity may be spent on corporate video production, revenue growth is lagging, and that the actual revenue per job is decreasing as well. These are just some theories based on anecdotal evidence.
Do the results of this study mesh with your experience? Is the corporate video market booming in terms of work (if not revenue)? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
